Take a look at the other parts first.

I get to the hospital early. Its time. I go through the lobby, up the elevator, the same damn routine I've been doing for months. I can damn near walk to her room with my eyes closed. Theres someone outside her room, some new doctor or nurse I've never seen before. I ignore him for now.

I look around for her Doctor. He's not here, they tell me. He transferred out to some other ward.  Couldn't handle the stress of the ICU anymore. I'm surprised at first, until I remember the look in his eyes yesterday. The honesty, the integrity. The sorrow.

I don't blame him for leaving.

The new doctor and I walk into her room, medical charts cemented in his hand. It's still dark outside, still early. She's asleep. That's probably better for her anyway.

A man ought to shoot his own dog, Steinbeck once said. Or maybe it was his own horse. Or maybe his own mother. I don't remember, but I won't do it anyway. I can't.

Do it, I tell the doctor. My hands are shaking already. He busies himself, unplugging wires, closing an oxygen valve, and all I can do is watch in horror. My heart jumps. I start to sweat. It's already beginning, he tells me. She won't feel a thing. I believe him.

Its' then that her eyes snap open. It's then that her eyes wander the room, and it's then that her eyes settle upon me. Her Judge, her Jury, her Executioner...her Son.

I move closer to her. I hold her hand, I whisper that I love her. I tell her she'll be in a better place, and that's when the tears start to fall. She gasps for air. I thank her for her love, for her sacrifices. Her eyes widen. I squeeze her hand.

And just like that, she's dead. Her hopes, her dreams, gone forever. Her sacrifices, her love. Gone.

She is free.

Free from the cancer. Free from abusive husbands and dead daughters. Free from a world where her son, her goddamn SON decides whether she lives in pain or dies in peace.

I'd like to think she died that way, in peace. I'd love to tell myself that the look in her sallow, sunken eyes (you still see more than I) thanked me as she went. I'd love to pretend the noises she made were just gasps for air.

I can't, though. I know better.

No matter what I tell myself, I know those weren't just a dying womans last hopes for breath. I saw the look of terror in her eyes. I saw what she was saying. "Daniel, her lips whispered her timeless phrase, You're a star in the face of -"

And now, when it's three in the morning, I sit here, in my gray jumpsuit, with the patch saying Dan in cursive letters. I sit here, with a bowl of cereal, a bottle in my hand, and I can't help but wonder if she found her peace, her freedom, at last.